


Set and Match

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Gen, M/M, Matchmaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:47:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's always wanted to be a hero.</p>
<p>Response to tumblr prompt: Atomwave, Sentinel AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set and Match

Ray's always wanted to be a hero.

When he was a kid, he used to read almost fanatically about Sentinels and Guides, learning every detail, following every exploit of leading individuals. Being part of Sentinel-Guide pair isn’t a guarantee of being a hero, of course – there wouldn't be as many villains to defeat if that was the case – and it certainly wasn't the only path to heroism, but something about the Sentinel, the alpha predator and guardian of his territory, and his Guide, his empathetic connection and sole support, caught Ray’s imagination and set it on fire.

The idea of having a perfect match was an additional source of appeal. Soulmates weren’t a thing outside of romance novels, but while any Guide could help a Sentinel in the short term, each Sentinel had the one Guide that suited them just right and visa versa. The perfect match. It was as close as you came to soulmates in this world: the fact that most Sentinels and their Guides ended up in relationships only made it all the more romantic.

Sentinels were rare, of course, and not nearly enough was known about them: only that they were stronger, faster, could see and hear and smell better than regular humans, and that they were fanatically devoted to whatever they considered their territory. Some Sentinels guarded places; others groups of people, things, or even ideas.

When Ray was very little, he entertained the idea of being a Sentinel, but he reluctantly released the idea once he passed puberty and no signs were forthcoming. Late onset Sentinels were known to occur, of course, but less and less as the signs were becoming better known and more easily recognized.

So he turned his attention towards being a Guide. Some people dismissed it as being a sidekick job, but people who took an interest, like Ray, knew better. Guides were, if anything, more interesting: possessed of empathetic powers activated by their bond with their Sentinel, they served as the Sentinel’s connection to the tribe, their moral compass, the only one who could bring them down out of their Zones, the one who led them down the right path – or the wrong one. The Guide was the whole world to a Sentinel, whether they were in a romantic relationship or not.

Moreover, Guides were far more common – it was said that one in every thousand had empathetic potential, and thus the potential to be a Guide, while Sentinels were significantly less than one for every million. 

Ray applied to the Sentinel and Guide Centre almost as soon as he came of age (the day after, actually – first he had to rid himself of the hangover his friends had saddled him with). The Centre would test his empathic potential, classify him and compare him to the available Sentinels, and then would invite him to meet and greets hosted nationwide to introduce him to Sentinels in search of their true Guide. It was his best shot.

It was a bust.

It turns out that Ray scored extremely low on his empathic potential. Ridiculously low. Pathetically low. Voight-Kampff test low.

It was crushing; Ray had always seen himself as a pretty nice guy, kind and generous and, yes, empathetic, everything an Eagle Scout ought to be, but the tester at the Centre was very certain there was no mistake. 

The guidance and matching individuals at the Centre told him apologetically that he had no chance; technically, yes, Ray has empathetic potential and could be a Guide and as a results he would be invited to meet and greets but, they explained, the very purpose of a Guide is that a Sentinel needs to rely upon them for their empathetic connection to the tribe and doesn't work if the Guide is…they don’t mean to be blunt…deficient.

Ray goes to the meet and greets anyway. Even if he has no chance to becoming a Guide, the chance to meet a real Sentinel is one he can’t pass up.

He meets Anna instead.

Anna’s another Guide potential; they bond over the absurdity of the whole process and sigh together over the romance of it all.

Anna’s everything a Sentinel could possibly want in a Guide: kind, gentle, thoughtful, ethical, confident, intelligent, nuanced, deep, complex, and she even had high empathetic potential scores. 

And even with all of that, she picked Ray instead.

Ray was surprised when she mischievously asks him out, delighted when their first date went well, excited when their dates continued to go well, ecstatic when she accepts his proposal for marriage.

He’s devastated when she dies.

Some random murderer in the street – Ray can’t help but think to himself in his grief that if only she hadn’t picked him, if she’d found her Sentinel instead, he would have protected her, with his powers and his heroism, and Anna would still be alive. Not with him, perhaps, but still alive, and what was heartbreak to knowing that someone like Anna would still be gracing the world? Instead, in his selfishness, he took that chance away from her.

Ray’s shrink tells him these thoughts are not helpful.

Ray responds by stopping his therapy and starting to build a super-powered suit instead.

After a few months of intensive effort, he acknowledges to himself that that might not have been the emotionally mature response. Maybe the Centre was onto something after all, saying he wasn’t exactly fit to be a Guide. 

Not that that stopped his efforts with the ATOM suit; he was going to be a hero, one way or the other. He was going to do what Anna would have wanted and move on with his life. Mostly. 

Ray still follows along in the news and rumors about Sentinels and Guides – the new Starling city vigilante, whom everyone assumed to be a Sentinel working with an undercover Guide; the tireless efforts of the long-time (deliberately anonymous) Sentinel of Gotham City and his Guide and counterpart; the pregnancy of Lyla Diggle, Sentinel for the US government; the latest exploits of famous Sentinel-Guide thief pair Leonard Snart and Mick Rory; the marriage of Diana, Sentinel in defense of women, and her Guide; the emergence of the Flash in Central City and how proud everyone was to have a Sentinel stand in their defense at last even if he did seem to be going the anonymous route as well – because, well, even after everything, he still loved them. He and Anna had both loved them. But he’s not hoping for anything out of that obsession anymore; not being a Guide, not even meeting a Sentinel in real life.

Ray’s not expecting his rebound from Anna – courting Felicity Smoak, gorgeous hacker, programming genius and (it turns out) really helpful for his ATOM suit – to be the doorway to actually meeting and even (maybe) befriending a real life Sentinel. Because of course as soon as he’s given up, he finds out he’s semi-seriously long-term dating the Starling City Sentinel vigilante’s True Guide. 

Ray is sad when Felicity inevitably leaves him for Oliver, but really, he’s a little pleased by it at the same time. It’s nice to know that all the stories of the grand love of a Sentinel and Guide aren’t just made up. He wishes them both the best.

He perfects the ATOM suit and uses it to help Oliver out a bit. Then there’s the whole mess where he’s assumed to be dead and no one seems to care much and he has to start all over again, and maybe he’s a bit depressed, but either way he feels like being kidnapped is just the icing on the cake here.

“Fascinating story,” the man next to him in driver’s seat of the car drawls. “Also, I don’t care.”

“I’m just saying,” Ray says earnestly from where he is both handcuffed to the door and tied up with several rounds of rope around his shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees, “that this is really not a good point in my life for this. As excited as I would be to meet you in any other circumstances.”

The driver rolls his eyes. He’s easily identifiable to a Sentinel geek such as Ray as Leonard Snart, famous (or rather, infamous) as one of the Sentinel-Guide villain pairs. As terrible as this whole kidnapping thing is, Ray can’t help but be kinda excited about meeting one of the legends: Leonard Snart and Mick Rory – world-class thieves, the modern day Bonnie and Clyde, Guide and Sentinel villains who used their abilities to steal instead of to protect, most recently nicknamed Captain Cold and Heatwave in their battles against the Flash in Central City with their new weapons of choice. It was generally assumed that Snart, with his slick ability to persuade and con and plan with a cool head, was the Guide and Rory, with his extraordinary strength and his reliance on Snart's guidance, was the Sentinel, but what no one could figure out was what it was they thought they were protecting. Every bonded pair had something, after all, even if Snart and Rory were both extraordinarily non-empathetic - no one had any idea how a Guide, any activated Guide, could bear to see people in fits of terror and pain, yet Snart infamously smirked his way through their heists, untouchable as ice. Ray’s actually really excited to meet him, maybe ask a few questions, but seriously, Ray has _no idea_ why Snart’s kidnapped him.

Maybe he should ask. Twelfth time’s the charm, right?

Snart looks dangerously close to trying to throw either Ray or possibly himself out the car window. “You’re just lucky I don’t believe in gags as a rule,” he tells Ray testily. “And you’re making me think of breaking that rule, just so you know – and I don’t break my rules.”

“But still,” Ray persists. “I’d be of much more help if you could tell me what it is exactly that you wanted – unfortunately, what with the whole assumed dead thing, I would need to get in contract with Felicity to get you a ransom payment –”

“If I wanted money, I would steal money,” Snart informs him. “No need to go the roundabout way.”

Ray acknowledges this point as valid. 

"If this is about my ATOM suit -" Ray begins instead, thinking longingly of the suit still sitting on the bedside table back at home. He hadn’t thought he’d need it on a grocery run. Maybe this was why superheroes wore their suits under their clothing all the time..? 

"Very cute, but not really my style."

"Is this a trap for the Starling City vigilante? Because he doesn't really like me that much after the whole dating his True Guide thing –"

"Why would I want to trap him? I don't even like Star City and he seems to stick around there."

Ray frowns. "If you don't want my money or my tech or my friends," he asked, confused, "then what _do_ you want? I can't really be of use to you in any other way..."

"You shouldn't talk down at yourself that way," Snart says, smirking. "No, I've got a much better idea of what to do with you."

"What is it, though?"

Snart rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer.

Ray sulks.

They end up pulling up to a deserted warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Snart seems unduly relieved by the sight of it, but he unhooks Ray's wrists from the door and cuts the rope around his knees, though he leaves him otherwise trussed up. "C'mon, Raymond," he says and leads him inside.

Ray finds himself starting to get excited when they get closer and it starts being hotter and hotter – a sure sign of the presence of Snart's partner, Mick Rory. Heatwave. Wow!

Sure enough, the man himself is perched in the center of the room, staring at a giant furnace. His arms and shoulders and neck are bandaged up thoroughly; the skin around them is reddened. He must have been hurt somehow.

Ray glances sidelong at Snart. "You know that none of my doctorates are in medicine, right?"

"I've already brought a doctor to see him," Snart says and cuts the rest of the ropes loose. 

Ray rubs the circulation back into his arms. "So, why am I here?" he asks for the millionth time.

Snart gestures at Rory, so Ray approaches the infamously volatile Sentinel. Rory doesn't react, which is explained when Ray circles around and sees the vacant look in his eyes.

"He's Zoned out!" Ray exclaims, surprised. It was a deep Zone, too; faced by excessive external stimuli, Rory had retreated entirely into his own head rather than simply shutting down the offending sense. This was the great weakness of the Sentinels, the trade off to their enhanced senses, and why they relied on Guides to walk them out of it. There was no way to tell how long Rory had been out of it, but he had a good layer of stubble building up, several days’ worth at the least. Ray spins back to Snart and says, accusingly, "Why haven't you Guided him out of it already?"

Snart, who has settled himself on a couch between Ray and the exit, cold gun out and perched on the couch next to him, regular gun strapped to his other hip, looks at him wryly. "I have my reasons," he drawls. "Now why don't you give it a shot?"

" _Me_?" Ray says, shocked. "Oh, no, you don't understand, I'm not actually a Guide potentiate -"

"The Centre lists you as one, according to the certification on your office wall."

"Well, yes, _technically_ I am, I have the potential, I mean, but you don't understand. I scored abysmally low on the empathy portion of the exam. I scored so bad, you wouldn't believe it -"

"Oh, I believe it," Snart drawls. "I looked up your scores at the Centre directory. Yowch." 

Ray blushed. "Yeah, I know. So you see -"

"You know _how_ to do it, though, right? All the techniques and shit they teach at the Centre?"

"Oh, yes," Ray says. "I aced all the theoretical courses."

Snart lounges back on the couch. "Well, then, Raymond," he says. "I think it's time for you to try the practical."

"But shouldn't _you_ do it?"

Snart shakes his head. "We're in a bit of a fight right now," he says, explaining nothing. "Give it your best shot, will you? If you really can't do anything, I'll let you go. Alive, even."

"I wasn't aware the alternative was an option," Ray says faintly, but he turns his attention to Rory. He has no idea why Snart's abdicating his job as Rory's Guide, and he's totally going to lecture him about his responsibilities as a Guide later, death threats or not, but he's never had a chance to try out all the tricks he's learned and he's dying to give it a shot, whatever the reason might be.

He ends up wrapping Rory's hands around his wrists and trying to get him to listen to his pulse. Rory's hands are large and warm. "C'mon," he says coaxingly. "You can feel it, right? Just blood being pumped around by the heart. One-two, one-two. Come on, Rory -"

"Call him Mick," Snart advises from where he's watching on the couch.

"Come on, _Mick_. Try to pay attention to my voice…" Ray runs through the traditional exercises, counting, listing numbers, focusing on various senses, for a while, trying to bring Rory out of it, but after about five minutes he sighs. “I don’t think it’s working. I mean, the chances of a non-Centre match working out is pretty low. They say it’s about .03%, which can’t be right – I mean, people were matching for years before they set up the Centres, you know? I think they fluff up their numbers to keep them in business. It also raises the question as to why most Guides and Sentinels who match end up being from the same basic area – is it the similar background? The geography? Personally, I’ve always thought that there are certain Guides and Sentinel types that are compatible, but of course no one ever tries to bond with someone a second time, so everyone assumes they’ve found their one and only when in fact there probably is a small slice of people who could have fit the category and they bonded with the first one they found, which would explain the geographic dispersion, because obviously people start looking first where they are –”

"Christ," a deep voice rumbles over his shoulder. "Where'd you find this one, Snart? He talks nearly as much as you do."

Ray spins back to where Mick is blinking out of his Zone, his hands tightening on Ray's wrists when Ray tries to pull them back. "Um, hi?" he says. "My name's Ray Palmer."

"Whatever, Haircut," Mick says dismissively, but he's not letting go of Ray's wrists and is, in fact, stroking his thumbs along the underside of Ray’s wrist in a way that makes Ray relax a bit and maybe shiver a little even though he's aware that whatever value he might have had to Snart has probably just expired.

"He's been declared dead in his hometown," Snart chooses that moment to add. "He likes science and building things, and he's even made himself a super-suit that flies around and blasts things with lasers."

Honestly, that sounds more like Ray's dating profile on a website than an explanation as to why Ray is there. 

Mick stares at Snart. "You can't be serious," he says flatly, clearly continuing an existing conversation. "He's a giant puppy, and I can tell despite being _Zoned_ for the first half of that conversation. Giant puppy, Len."

"You've always liked puppies," Snart says.

"Wait," Ray says. "Are you talking about me?"

"He wouldn't last ten minutes," Mick says, ignoring Ray. 

"He got you out of that Zone, Mick," Snart replies, then reaches up and rubs his eyes, looking suddenly very tired. "You got lost on a job, Mick; you got lost bad. Again. Just like that other time a few years back. The flames got to you and you couldn't get out. I can't keep doing this anymore, Mick. I just can't. But I'm not going to leave you behind again. I can't do that either."

Mick flushes and looks down and away from Snart. "I'm trying, Lenny," he says in a low voice, and Ray suddenly feels deeply awkward about listening in on what's clearly a private conversation. "You know I am."

"I know," Snart says. "But it ain’t working. I know you don’t – I know what it means to you, but we gotta try something more than what we’ve been doing so far. There's maybe three people who know this guy's alive, Mick, and none that'd come looking for him too hard -"

Sad, but probably true.

"- and he's perfect for you, Mick. Interests and traits and habits and all; I've been tracking him for a day or so, as long as I could manage and still get back to you in time to help. We should keep him."

Huh?

"Keep me for what, exactly?" Ray asks.

Snart finally tears his eyes away from Mick where they've been staring intently into each other's eyes and looks at Ray. "Remember how you were telling me in the car about how you'd always wanted to be a Guide?" he asks. "Well, guess it's your lucky day. Mick here's in the market for one, however reluctant he might be to admit it."

"In the market for a _Guide_?" Ray echoes, shocked beyond all measure. "But that's impossible - aren't _you_ his Guide?"

Mick barks out a laugh and Snart smirks. "Snart's not a Guide, pretty boy," Mick tells him with obvious relish. "He's a Sentinel."

Ray gapes at the two of them, turning his head from one to the other. "But you work together!" he exclaims. "You've been together for over a decade at least, and that’s only as far as the public knows about, and – and – and _everyone_ knows Sentinels can't stand being on each other's territory!" 

"We keep our clashes to a minimum," Snart drawls. "Luckily for us, our respective territories intersect. Mine's Central City, and Mick here just cares about his personal pack, which just so happens to include me. Real old fashioned with his instincts, Mick is; you gotta be up close and personal before he'll give a damn about you."

"You try moving around as often as I did as a kid and finding a proper territory," Mick grumbles good-naturedly. "I took whatever I could get, and look where it got me - I gotta put up with you, you snarky bastard." 

"And you want _me_ to be your _Guide_?" Ray says faintly. This is both freakily similar to some daydreams he had as a kid of some Sentinel swooping in and asking him to be their Guide and well, also totally different, what with the kidnapping and the death threats and the criminals and all. "Um, I'm not sure if Snart mentioned, but I basically got the worst possible scores on my empathy tests."

"So did I," Rory says. 

"But you're a Sentinel..?"

"'So low as to suggest an inability to bond'," Snart quotes, looking pleased with himself. "It's on both your sheets. Mick's never had any luck with conventional Guides - "

"So goddamn touchy feely," Mick says with disgust.

"- but I've been able to work as his Guide for years now, if imperfectly, despite having an obvious empathy deficient myself, what with me being a Sentinel and all. So I figure, the reason the matching system keeps screwing it up is 'cause they keep trying to pair him with high empathy people he's got nothing in common with, like they think that empathy can just get shoved over the bond till Mick has some too, and that ain't how it works."

"So you think - _me_?"

"Why not?" Snart says. "You got him out of that Zone, when I couldn't - when I couldn't reach him. So why not? It's your time to be called to duty, Ray."

"But I'm not a criminal!" Ray exclaims. "I’m a hero! I _fight crime_!"

"Christ," Mick says with distaste, finally dropping Ray's hands and recoiling. "Snart, you got me a fucking _white hat_? Not a chance in hell. Gotta be someone else out there that’s low empathy enough for me. We'll find someone less dumb."

"Hey, I'll have you know that -"

"You fucking Guides always think you can change me," Mick snarls. “I’m not going to put up with - ”

Ray feels his eyes narrow and his spine go straight. "I didn't say anything about that! You're just making assumptions -"

"Oh, yeah? Am I wrong, _hero_?"

"Coming here wasn't even my idea -"

The sound of the cold gun charging up makes them both go abruptly quiet and turn to look at Snart, whose lips have stretched into something vicious and murderous masquerading as a smile.

"I think you've both gotten the wrong idea here," he says, his voice pleasant and smooth in contrast with the bubbling rage in his expression. "Raymond, you're going to be working as Mick's new Guide. Mick, you're going to suck it up and take him on. Notice that none of that was phrased in the form of a question."

"You're not actually going to shoot us," Ray says confidently. "You need us to be able to act as Sentinel and Guide for each other, that’s the whole point of this, and we’ve got to be intact for that." He pauses. "Um, right?"

Mick wordlessly pushes up a sleeve to show a thin scar of healed over skin. "Frostbite," he says shortly. "Lenny doesn't kill people any more, not since he made a deal with _his_ Guide, but he sure can make it hurt to disagree with him."

"...oh." 

"You sure you want to do this, Lenny?" Mick asks Snart directly. "You know how I feel about Guides. This might be the point where I say no more, and then it'll be you versus me. And only one of us is walking out of here if we get to that point."

Snart's lips go thin and flat, but he inclines his head, acknowledging. "I'm willing to take the risk, Mick. I'm telling you, we can't go on the way we've been." 

"But over _him_?"

"He's the best shot we've got right now," Snart says, and powers down his gun. "If this is where you walk, go ahead. You wanna walk out, you gotta do it through me, but I ain't gonna stop you from making that call."

"Fuck, Lenny," Mick says, and puts his hands over his face.

"So you'll do it?"

"Yeah, boss," Mick says with a sigh. "I'll do it."

"Then it's settled," Snart says with satisfaction.

"You haven't asked me what I think yet!" Ray yelps.

Neither criminal looks particularly impressed. "Christ," Mick mutters. "I'm gonna be Guided by the world’s dumbest puppy. Lenny, is this revenge for all the times I made fun of your chirpy little Guide?"

Ray blinks, only now catching onto what Mick has been saying. "Wait, you have a Guide? Like, a True Guide?" 

"It's like watching a puppy with a squirrel," Snart says, smirking. "And yes, Raymond, being as I _am_ in fact a Sentinel, I’m compatible with Guides. And, as it happens, I found my True Guide about a year ago."

"Then why didn't they help with Mick..?"

"We're still working things out," Snart says vaguely.

"By which he means that both he and the Flash are too stubborn to talk about shit so they've been killing the rest of us with all their flirting and unresolved sexual tension," Mick interjects. 

Snart glares at him.

Ray gapes. "The _Flash_? But I thought he was a Sentinel! He - his territory is Central City!"

Snart's eyes flash dangerously. " _My_ territory is Central City," he corrects Ray. "Since he's my True Guide, by happenstance, his territory covers the same ground. But it's still _mine_ and I’ll have the head of anyone who says otherwise – True Guide or otherwise."

Ray notes that this is clearly a sore spot and also that if he had any doubt that Snart was a Sentinel, they're all gone now. "But the newspapers said-" he says weakly.

"Newspapers get stuff wrong all the time," Snart says dismissively, relaxing again. "And they've got a hell of a bias towards thinking of heroes as being Sentinels, especially if you've got powers. Trust me, you're not the first one to be disappointed."

"Fucking future-Thawne's temper tantrum when you and Flash bonded was one for the history books," Mick says with a grin. "The ones that don’t exist in his timeline, of course. Apparently Thawne had this whole plan where Flash boy was either supposed to go for his sister or Thawne himself as his Guide, except of course for the little problem where he ain't actually a Sentinel."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Snart advises Ray, who's still catching flies from gaping so hard. "You'll hear all about it soon enough while you're spending some quality time with Mick. He likes to whine about it. Endlessly."

"Don't listen to Snart," Mick says. "He's a prissy little drama queen who blows a few little comments out of all proportion."

"So if you're not Sentinel and Guide," Ray says slowly, looking between the two of them, "then what are you to each other?"

"We're partners," Snart says. 

"Partners as in...?"

They both roll their eyes. "Partners as in _partners_ ," Snart clarifies unhelpfully. "We've been best friends since - what was it, I was fourteen?"

"Thirteen," Mick says with a smirk. "You keep rounding up by a few weeks, but you were a baby." 

"So don't worry," Snart says. "He's all yours."

"I didn't mean it that way!" Ray exclaims, blushing.

He totally meant it that way.

Mick’s very attractive.

Oh, hell, he’s considering it, isn’t he? Becoming a Guide is something he’s dreamed about since he was a kid. He’s not going to throw away this chance just because he’s going to be Guiding what must be the most prickly, arrogant, criminal, brutish Sentinel this side of the Atlantic. Worst case, it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. Snart will find Mick somebody new and Ray will go home.

Best case…well, Mick can say all he likes about not wanting to change; he wouldn’t be compatible with Ray if Ray couldn’t bring him at least a _little_ over to the side of heroes. 

So yeah. 

He’s going to do this.

It’s probably going to be a terrible failure, but hey, after working on the ATOM suit for so long, Ray’s kind of gotten used to that.

(Six months down the line, they’re robbing a bank to help topple an evil dictator because Len says they need to learn to compromise and somewhere in there between the fire and the lasers, Ray leans over and kisses his Sentinel soundly the way he always does when they’re about to split up in a battle and then abruptly thinks back to that original conversation and huh, maybe it wasn’t a failure after all.)


End file.
